Mundine: In Green Rematch, I'll Show Why I'm Called 'The Man'

ANTHONY Mundine is a two-division world champion but it’s clear he’s still bitter about the circumstances that led to him retiring from rugby league.

Mundine retired from rugby league in 2000 after a successful career in which he played 116 games for the Dragons in two stints either side of 11 matches for the Brisbane Broncos.

But it was his lack of recognition at representative level that truly stung the flashy playmaker, being selected for only three State of Origin games for the NSW Blues in 1999.

Mundine believed at the time, and presumably still does, that there were nefarious elements at play that conspired against him due to the color of his skin. He revealed how he has long fed off any racist incidents during his career.

“I’m a real resilient type of guy as far as racism (goes). When I was young, I used to teach myself to turn a negative into a positive,” Mundine said. “What was negative in my world, I turn into a positive. I dealt with racism, I used that to motivate me. I used that to inspire me. I used that to push me. To achieve. To speak out about it. To educate the people about it. But then they think I’m being racist because I’m trying to educate the people.”

That’s why it’s little known that Mundine has given away vast sums of his impressive fortune — as much as “two to three million” according to the man himself — but he denies his widely anticipated fight against Danny Green in February next year is due to any financial pressure.

“I can be cool right now to stop and retire if I wanted to. I can be cool. This is a grudge match. It’s a deep, hard-core grudge match,” Mundine said.

Mundine won their first bout back in 2006 at the Sydney Football Stadium, a result that Green put down to being overly weakened after having to strictly fast to make weight.

It’s a claim that Mundine isn’t buying.

“He has been yapping, yapping, yapping about the weight issues when he fought his whole career at super middleweight,” Mundine said. “It wasn’t an issue when he won a world title at super middleweight, it wasn’t an issue.

“He beat (Eric) Lucas, beat (Markus) Beyer, the first time, lost in a rematch but he fought his whole career at super middleweight but when we fought it was a weight problem. So I just want to eradicate any weight issue for this one. I’m going to show you why I’m called ‘The Man’.”